EVERETT — Whoever walked off with sports memorabilia from a Cascade High gym earlier this month stole part of a school’s legacy and broke a father’s heart.
Three championship footballs with student-athlete signatures on them disappeared from the lobby of Reg Scodeller Gymnasium June 5 or 6.
Also missing is the retired No. 55 jersey of Brett Jensen, a valedictorian student-athlete who died after a fall from the balcony of a University of Washington fraternity in 2002.
Don Jensen, Brett’s father, said the theft “just doesn’t make any sense.”
“It just kind of makes you angry, just disappointed I guess, that somebody would do that,” Jensen said.
Brett Jensen was 19 and a freshman at the UW in 2002 when he fell to his death in an alcohol- related accident.
At Cascade High School, he was one of three valedictorians with a 4.0 grade point average. His peers voted him class president each year from seventh grade through high school.
As a tribute to Brett Jensen’s contribution on and off the field, his home football jersey was retired on Sept. 21, 2002, meaning No. 55 will never be issued again to a football player at Cascade, school officials said.
“We speculate that whoever did this has no clue what this jersey meant to so many people,” said Doug Kloke, Cascade’s athletic coordinator.
Cascade officials believe the theft occurred on June 5, which was not a school day for students, when doors to the building were unlocked.
The other stolen items include a Region 1 championship football from 1980, a state championship football from 1991 and a third-place football from 2005.
Kloke said a member of the Cascade High School found a trophy stolen from the campus off a trail in some bushes near Emerson Elementary School nearby.
Kloke said he hopes the stolen items are returned when people realize their sentimental value to the school.
School officials are asking for any information that might help them recover the stolen items. Anyone with knowledge of the theft is asked to call the school at 425-385-6000.
Reporter Eric Stevick: 425-339-3446, stevick@heraldnet.com.
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